


how confused am i by our happiness

by leoperidot



Series: my fics for bakoda fleet week 2020 [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Light Angst, M/M, Marriage, almost forgot that tag whoops, bato and kya were best friends and i will stand by that forever, bato is (as ever) a yearning gay, not a sequel to my last fic this week but like. a sequel in spirit, reflection on grief via looking at old pictures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25680571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoperidot/pseuds/leoperidot
Summary: On a big day, Bato pauses for a conversation.
Relationships: Bato & Kya (Avatar), Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), bato x a happy ending bc he mf deserves it
Series: my fics for bakoda fleet week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1853833
Comments: 25
Kudos: 113
Collections: Bakoda Fleet Week 2020





	how confused am i by our happiness

**Author's Note:**

> for bakoda fleet week day 7, prompt: wedding :'))
> 
> title from "what more can i say?" from the musical falsettos, aka quite possibly the best love song (and best *queer* love song) ever written, in my humble opinion. pls listen to the song and read allll of the bakoda into it, i know i do.

There’s a picture on the shelf from ( _God_ , Bato thinks) almost twenty years ago now. Hakoda in his white dress shirt and ill-fitting suit jacket and his sunny, beautiful smile, and Kya, as radiant as ever, in light blue—she didn’t care for the symbolism, the color, or the Eurocentric tradition of a white dress—regarding Hakoda with awe and pride and somewhere, a hint of bemusement, like she couldn’t believe he was hers.

Bato understands the feeling.

Another picture sits nearby, more recent but only slightly, of Kya with baby Katara in one arm and toddler Sokka clinging to the other with an iron grip. Next to that, an even older picture that Hakoda must’ve taken, of Kya and Bato, in high school or just afterward, sitting by that dingy polluted river near where they grew up, all decked out in flannel and denim and stupid grins. The sort of grins you give to an inside joke that you concede is past its prime, but you can’t help but laugh at anyway. (On the question of whether that’s a joint perched between his fingers, Bato would choose to plead the fifth.)

“I hope you don’t mind,” Bato murmurs to the image of Kya frozen in decades-old mirth. 

He pulls on the cuffs of his sleeves, willing himself not to give into the urge to roll them up, at least until after the ceremony. Today must be perfect. He tugs at his tie, remembering how expertly Kya could tie a Windsor knot, the cadence of her laugh as she would watch him struggle with it before giving into his pleas and doing it for him.

“I tied it myself today,” he tells her, with the sort of pride more befitting of a child who’s graduated from Velcro to laced sneakers. “So there.”

The picture can’t have been taken that long before Kya and Hakoda started dating, because that particular development occurred during the first semester of Bato’s ill-fated first attempt at higher education. He returned home to find his two best friends suddenly— _more_ than that. He couldn’t say he hadn’t expected it, but he also couldn’t say he wasn’t jealous. 

(What he couldn’t admit to himself at the time was that it was not Hakoda he was jealous of.) 

“Promise I’m not trying to usurp you,” Bato tells eighteen-year-old Kya. “He is still yours. As he ever was.”

A wave of grief hits him then. That’s how it is, it comes in waves, even now, more than a decade after. The sea is calmer now, like a clear day, but it will never be still. It can’t be.

He knows, intellectually, that he is no usurper. That he went out of his way, the whole time Kya and Hakoda were together and for years after she passed, even though he lived with them, slept in the spare bedroom, even though he was _right there_ , to tamp down any feelings he might have had for Hakoda. That Hakoda, five years ago, was ready to date again, and tried, with both women and then, tentatively, men. That Hakoda made the first move, not a moment before he was ready.

But Bato still feels, sometimes, like he stole her place.

Because here’s the thing—the sticking point, the place where his heart catches and for a moment, each time, he can hardly breathe. It’s the nature of grief to wonder what could have been. What we’ve missed out on. And he does, all the time. 

He’s so happy. Is the thing. He’s in love. 

But there’s no world where he gets both this happiness and Kya at once.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. His voice is too gruff; he winces at the sound. “I’m sorry.”

Hakoda would tell him he’s being ridiculous. Hakoda _has_ told him he’s being ridiculous, when he’s voiced this exact thought before. 

“She would want us to be happy,” Hakoda told him.

Which is true. 

But some small, desperate, guilty corner of Bato’s brain thinks that she wouldn’t want him to be happy like _this_. That if he took this joy he’d be reveling in her death, he’d as good as sacrificed her for his own gain. (Unhinged. He knows. But even the unhinged thoughts, maybe especially the unhinged thoughts, have a way of nesting in the folds of his brain.)

He takes a deep breath.

“He is so happy,” he tells her. “You should’ve seen him last night. I haven’t seen him get so excited since . . .” Well. “You know.”

He and Kya, nearly thirty years younger, keep smiling their frozen smiles from behind the thin sheet of glass.

“It’ll be a lot like yours,” he says. “Small, casual moment in City Hall.” Practically an elopement. It suits them just fine.

“I wish you could give us your blessing.” He fiddles with the buttons on his cuffs. “I know it’s not . . . But I wish—” His eyes slowly sweep over the photos: eighteen-year-old Kya by the grimy river, and thirty-one-year-old Kya with Sokka and Katara, and then, lastly, twenty-nine-year-old Kya in light blue at her wedding. 

“I just wish I knew this was the right thing to do.”

Suspended in one of the happiest moments of her life, resplendent in robin’s egg blue and a dazzling smile, she glows.

He sighs. “Yeah,” he murmurs, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Thanks, Ky.” He swallows down the lump in his throat. “I miss you.”

The silence is heavy, but it isn’t uncomfortable.

And then Hakoda comes bounding out of their bedroom, eyes sparkling with exhilaration, tweaking his robin’s egg blue bowtie into place.

Bato can’t help but smile at the sight, and he certainly can’t help but beam even wider as Hakoda stands ever so slightly on his tiptoes and takes Bato’s head in his hands and tilts it towards himself so they can reach each other. They’re nearing fifty— _when the hell did we get so old,_ Bato wonders—but Hakoda still kisses with the excitement of a much younger man, grinning into it as though it’s a thrilling secret, holding Bato tightly like he’s afraid to let go.

They’re interrupted by Sokka’s entrance with an aggressive fake gagging sound. Bato chuckles; Hakoda calls, “It’s my wedding day, I’ll be as gross as I want,” and keeps holding Bato, his strong hands secure on Bato’s back.

They sigh at the same time. Because that’s the kind of stupid shit that happens when you’ve known someone your whole life.

“You look good,” Hakoda says, resting a hand on Bato’s chest, running a finger along the sharp line of his clavicle.

“So do you,” Bato replies. “Good choice on the bowtie.”

Hakoda’s smile is faraway. “I knew you’d like it.”

They don’t need to point out what it matches.

Hakoda takes a deep breath, reaching for Bato’s hand. “Ready?” he asks quietly.

Bato nods. “You?”

Hakoda glances at the shelf. He swallows hard, then looks back up at Bato. “Yeah.”

They steal just one more chaste kiss, and then—

Yes. Bato is ready.

**Author's Note:**

> so there we go! thus concludes bakoda fleet week!! i hope u enjoyed my humble contributions, i so enjoyed reading everyone else's :D
> 
> i love love love kudoses and comments if you're so inclined


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